olar of our times
to glean his knowledge of one who in his day filled as large a space in
the public eye as almost any of his contemporaries, and whose talents,
virtues and public services entitled him to as lasting a fame as theirs.

Not from any of these sources, but from the Barlow family register in
the ancient records of Fairfield, we learn that the poet was born on
March 24, 1754, and not in 1755, as is almost universally stated by the
encyclopaedists. His father was Samuel Barlow, a wealthy farmer of the
village--his mother, Elizabeth Hull, a connection of the general and
commodore of the same name who figured so prominently in the war of
1812. There is little in the early career of the poet of interest to the
modern reader. He is first presented to us in the village traditions as
a chubby, rosy-faced boy, intent on mastering the Greek and Latin tasks
dealt out to him by Parson Bartlett, the Congregational minister of the
village, who, like many of the New England clergy of that day, added the
duties of schoolmaster to those of the clergyman. In a year or two he
was placed at Moor's school for boys in Hanover, New Hampshire, and on
completing his preparatory course he entered Dartmouth College in 1774.
His father had died the December previous, and, with the view probably
of being nearer his mother and family in Reading, he left Dartmouth in
his Freshman year and was entered at Yale.

Barlow's college career was marked by close application to study, and
won for him the respect and confidence of all with whom he came in
contact. During his second year the war of the Revolution broke out, but
the young poet, though an ardent patriot, clung to his books, resolutely
closing his ears to the clamor of war that invaded his sacred cloisters
until the long summer vacation arrived. Then he threw aside books and
gown and joined his four brothers in the Continental ranks, where he did
yeoman's service for his country. He graduated in 1778, and signalized
the occasion by reciting an original poem called the "Prospect of
Peace," which, in the quaint language of one of his contemporaries,
gained him "a very pretty reputation as a poet."

The next year found him a chaplain in the Continental army, in the same
brigade with his friend Dwight, later renowned as the poet-president of
Yale College, and with Colonel Humphreys, whom we shall find associated
with him in a far different mission. The two young chaplains, not
content wit